Challenge yourself… & help change lives
Challenge Anneka is returning so my life is back to the lag bolt and 3in screw. Although the programme hasn’t been on TV for 30 years, it has never left my heart.
I’m still involved with many of the challenges and the dozens of volunteers who keep the projects going.
And this year many of those projects are celebrating their 30th anniversaries.
At my stand-up comedy evening, the entire production team from 30 years ago was in the audience. That we’ve all stayed in touch is testament to the emotional tug of that series – we always talk about how it was the best time of our lives.
Humans are hard-wired to be altruistic and so to work on something that celebrates this is wonderful.
When war broke out in Ukraine, it knocked me for six and made me think we could possibly bring the series back.
You may remember that 30 years ago we renovated an orphanage in Siret, in northern Romania.
The whole of the UK seemed to get behind the project and we set off with a planeload of doctors, roofers, plumbers, electricians and donations.
The orphanage was like a concentration camp, with babies tethered three to a cot. They were utterly neglected, rocking desperately, as sewage ran down the corridors. They had no nappies, no heating and no lighting.
In this Siret orphanage alone, there were 700 children of indeterminate age all with shaved heads and many with chronic health problems.
There were orphanages like this all over Romania in the 80s and 90s – a result of Ceausescu’s brutal communist regime banning birth control. Monica McDaid was the ordinary teacher from Solihull who set us the challenge. Except she turned out to be extraordinary.
After we’d finished the project, she gave up her job in England, said goodbye to her family and, with a huge team of volunteers, dedicated her life to these children.
Now young adults, they live in sheltered housing, built by many of the builders and roofers and firemen who worked on the original orphanage. These volunteers still fund their own travel to Romania every year to work with the “kids”.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, something happened that made my heart crack wide open. The kids suddenly found themselves in the middle of a humanitarian crisis.
Siret is on the border with Ukraine and refugees were coming into the country, desperate and in need of accommodation. The now-adult orphans started giving up their beds to these destitute families. They were in a position to help, so they did.
One humanitarian crisis had simply been taken over by another, 30 years on.
I rang Dave the soundman and Martin the cameraman and we had a bit of a sob.
Much has moved on in 30 years. Attitudes to disability, mental health and the disenfranchised have changed but, fundamentally, the issues are still the same – they’re about human struggle.
I can’t wait to start filming our new series. If you see a mad blonde woman staggering out of a buggy, it will be me!
Why not grab your tool belt and come and join the circus? It might just change your life too.
Grab your tool belt and join the circus